Immediately "Les Soirées de Médan" appeared, its contributors were chaffed by the newspapers for attributing undue importance to themselves; and Zola was said to be bringing up these young men in leading-strings for the express advancement of his literary theories. A rather acrimonious controversy ensued, Zola repeatedly declaring that he was not, and did not wish to be, a _chef d'école_, and that those with whom he was associated were his friends and not his disciples. But the discussion suddenly ceased, for the literary world of Paris was startled by the unexpected news of Gustave Flaubert's death at Croisset, near Rouen. During the previous Easter (March, 1880) the veteran author had received Daudet, Zola, Charpentier, Maupassant, and Goncourt at his country place, and Goncourt has related in his "Journal" how thoroughly they enjoyed Flaubert's paternal hospitality, and how on Easter Monday they lingered in Rouen, ferreting among old curiosity shops, playing billiards, and planning a _diner fin_ at the principal hotel. When, however, they wished to give their order, consternation fell on them: it was a holiday, all the provision shops were closed, the hotel larder was virtually empty, and the _diner fin_ resolved itself into veal cutlets and cheese. That amusing experience was still in Zola's mind when, on May 8, he received at Médan this laconic telegram from Maupassant: "Flaubert dead." Dead--and they had left him so gay and so full of life and health! Zola was profoundly attached to Flaubert, and the tidings quite unmanned him. On May 11 he started for Le Croisset and attended the funeral, of which he has left a deeply interesting account, instinct with all the grief of one who has lost a near and dear friend. In these later years various English versions of some of Flaubert's books have been published, but, so far as the present writer is aware, no editor or publisher has thought of utilising Zola's account of Flaubert as an introduction to a translation. Yet that account is perhaps Zola's best work as an essayist,--full of interest, and much of it admirable in tone and style. One may say, too, that anybody wishing to form an accurate opinion of Gustave Flaubert, both as a writer and as a man, cannot do better than read the hundred pages which Zola devoted to him in his "Romanciers Naturalistes."